Introduction To Hedging

What is hedging?

When you hedge, you speak with less certainty. We add or change words to show that we may be wrong or to make our opinions weaker.

No hedging	Hedging
This avenue that we are exploring is reckless and foolhardy.	This avenue that we are exploring is *somewhat risky*.
I looked at your project, and the headings for your slides are completely disorganized.	I looked at your project, and the headings for your slides are *a little disorganized*.
We should ban smoking in the workplace because it causes cancer.	We should consider banning smoking in the workplace because it *can increase the risk of cancer*.

Why learn it?

Hedging is part of formal and academic discourse and helps to show neutrality, showing that your writing is more objective and consequently more formal. It is commonly used in semi-formal and formal contexts, such as the workplace or in academic writing.

It also helps avoid generalizing.

What is generalizing?

Generalizing is speaking too broadly about a subject. When you generalize, you might cause offense, especially if it could be proven to be incorrect. Look at the example conversation below.

A: How do you like living in Canada so far?
B: It’s great. Canadians are so nice. The people from my home country are rude and impolite with strangers, so it’s a nice change.
C: What? No they aren’t! Many of them are nice to strangers. Why are you exaggerating?

In this example, we can see that the person accidentally generalized. Instead, they could have said, “Some of the people from my home country can be rude and impolite with strangers” – this makes the statement more accurate and allows you to express your general ideas about something without worrying about having to speak about everyone/everything in that selection.